A high-fat diet enriched in medium chain triglycerides triggers hepatic thermogenesis and improves metabolic health in lean and obese mice

Obesity, liver steatosis and type 2 diabetes are major diseases partly imputed to energy-dense diets rich in long chain triglycerides (LCT). The search for bioactive nutrients that help to overcome metabolic diseases is a growing field. In this regard, medium chain triglycerides (MCT) were shown to promote lipid catabolism and to stimulate brown adipose tissue thermogenesis. The objective of our study was to evaluate if the replacement of LCT by MCT in high-fat diets could prevent and/or reduce metabolic disorders. For this purpose, two cohorts of C57BL/6 mice were fed during 10 weeks with three isocaloric high-fat diets with variable MCT content. Cohort A was composed of lean mice while cohort B was composed of obese, insulin resistant mice. In cohort A, replacement of LCT by MCT preserved metabolic health, in part by triggering hepatic thermogenesis. We further found that medium chain fatty acids promote thermogenesis markers within cultured hepatocytes in a FFAR1/GPR40-dependent manner. In cohort B, high-fat diets enriched in MCT promoted body fat depletion and caused metabolic health improvement, together with the induction of thermogenesis markers in the liver as well as in subcutaneous white adipose tissue. Our study supports that replacement of LCT by MCT in high-fat diets improves the metabolic features associated with obesity.